Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine
At the close of the 2006 baseball season, there were 11 active pitchers with 200 or more career wins. With the possible exception of Roger Clemens, all are currently scheduled to return for the 2007 season.

Okay, maybe David Wells (3-5, 4.42) is done, too, but it's possible that all 11 will be in uniform next season, and joined in the "200 Club" by John Smoltz (who has 193) and Andy Pettitte (186).

What's so unusual about all this? Well ...


... let's say all 13 are in play next season. Six of those 13 -- Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, Wells, Jamie Moyer, Kenny Rogers and Pettitte -- throw left-handed. Why is that so unusual, you may ask?

Maybe, I thought, it isn't. Lefties do tend to get to stick around pretty much as long as they want (see: "John, Tommy"), so I went to look at the list of career wins leaders. Did you realize that just three of the top 20 winners of all time (Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton and Eddie Plank) were left-handed?

Of the 100 or so MLB pitchers who have cracked 200 wins, just a bit more than 20 percent were lefties. That about squares with populational averages, as the FAQ maintained by alt.lefthanders puts the current estimate at 13-30 percent, depending on who's doing the estimating.

So what's the deal with the current crop of big winners? If Clemens retires and Wells doesn't, fully half of active 200-game winners will be lefties. Is it too small of a sample to consider? Is it random chance? Are lefties actually hanging around longer and winning more now than in the days of ... oh, wait. The three winningest lefties of all time, Spahn, Carlton and Plank, pitched until they were 44, 43 and 41, respectively.

Incidentally, five of the top 12 pitchers in career winning percentage are lefties, while that's true for just 22 of the top 100.

So what's the deal?

Big Winners ... All That's Left? | 2 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Anders - Monday, October 23 2006 @ 03:09 AM EDT (#157118) #
I'll put my two cents in.

To make it to big win levels requires an awful long career. Of the 16 pitchers with 300 career wins whose careers were mostly in the 20th century (sorry Kid Nichols et al.) almost all of them either pitched until they were 40 (or well past it!) or for at least 20 years. The only person who doesnt meet either of these standards (and most of them meet both, or either finished at 39 or only pitched 18 years) is... any guesses? Christy Mathewson, who happened to win at least 20 games a year for all but 2 of the 15 years of his career in which he pitched a full season. Only 4 out of the 16 pitchers are lefthanded, although 25% seems to mesh with the overall number of lefties.

Anyways, all those guys with 300 wins happen to be great pitchers, the lefties included (the aforementioned Spahn, Carlton and Plank, plus Lefty Grove.)

After that though, you start getting into the lefties who hung around for a long time and were above average to good - Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Herb Pennock (who?) Frank Tanana, Jerry Koosman, Jerry Reus, and there are a bunch more of these seemingly random pitchers.
Then there are a couple of pretty good guys - Randy, Glavine, Carl Hubbell, Whitey Ford, probably not quite Eppa Rixley.

Anyways, when you look at the righties, there are also a lot of the stick in theres, and there are some also some very good pitchers - the Bob's, Lemon, Feller and Gibson, Jim Palmer, Blyleven, Marichal, Drysdale, Pedro.

  There are a ton of guys, both lefties and righties, who just hang around for 20 years. Of the 6 you name Mick in the top 13, I'd put Glavine and Randy in the great pitcher category, and I'd put Moyer, Wells, and Kenny Rogers in the above average too good, hung around forever category. Pettite, well, he's been both good and a Yankee in the 90's. Classify him as you will.

While the stereotype of the 'crafty lefty' is prevalent,  I think that its just a weird sample size thing.


Anders - Monday, October 23 2006 @ 03:14 AM EDT (#157119) #
Also, for a bit of fun. Which pitcher, other than the seemingly slam dunk duo of Smolz and Pettite, will be next to reach 200 wins? What year, and why?

I'd say Livan Hernandez, in 2011, and because he has an iron arm.

Big Winners ... All That's Left? | 2 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.